Fashion and Foot Deformation the Need for Podiatrists to Deal with Human Nature
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Building Your FOOTWEAR PRACTICE Fashion and Foot Deformation The need for podiatrists to deal with human nature. By William A. Rossi, D.P.M. trated the podiatrists and orthope- lightenment about the foot/shoe rela- dists who invoke another mantra, tionship of women. ince its earliest days podiatry has charging women with being “slaves It is time for these ingenuous assailed fashion footwear for its of fashion” and concepts of “fash- Shigh heels, pointed toes, tight dominated by ion” and particu- fit, extremist styling, absence of sup- “vanity.” This It is time for these larly fashion foot- port, etc. It has made an almost holy clears the medical wear to be ex- mantra of such terms as “crippling” conscience by feel- ingenuous concepts of posed to the light or “ruining” of the feet. As an alterna- ing it has fulfilled “fashion” and of reality. Some of tive, it has recommended “sensible” its professional the facts present- shoes, with low, broad heels, round duty by warning particularly fashion ed in this paper or broad toes with high roof or box, the public about footwear to be exposed may have a jar- Oxfords or laced up styles for “sup- the health hazards ring effect on tra- port”, firm shanks, roomy fit, etc. of fashion foot- to the light of reality. ditional views Generation after generation, the wear. about the foot/ public, women especially, has largely This noble shoe relationship, ignored the warnings and recommen- stance not only leaves the problem especially as related to fashion. But dations. Women’s fashion footwear unsolved, but leaves the medical sometimes traumatic therapy is es- continues to outsell “sensible” shoes practitioners cocooned in their tradi- sential to create a confrontation by at least 15 to one. This has frus- tional state of innocence and unen- Continued on page 104 Left, normal waist and rib cage; right, permanently de- Stretched earlobes, common custom or “fashion” of Indo-Chinese formed rib cage caused by habitual wearing of corsets women prior to the 20th century. Each set of brass rings piercing to conform to narrow waist fashion of 19th century. each lobe weighs five pounds. www.podiatrymgt.com OCTOBER 2001 • PODIATRY MANAGEMENT 103 Fashion... intrudes on physical health. Fashion plies today universally no different is usually presumed to be a shallow than thousands of years earlier. with the untarnished facts of reality. expression of personal “vanity”—a Some 10,000 years ago tribal fickle plaything constantly evolving chieftains wore stilts when addressing The Function of Fashion to keep us amused and entertained. the tribal mass. No other member Fashion has always been a misun- This, unfortunately, is a gullible, in- was allowed to wear stilts. The stilts derstood and abused term by the genuous view remote from the tangi- allowed the wearer to “look down” medical fraternity, especially when it ble truths of human nature and ev- on all the others, or require the oth- eryday life. ers to “look up” to the leader. One of Fashion plays an enormously in- the fundamental attractions of high fluential role in our lives, often in- heels throughout recent centuries is volving and affecting our health that they increased physical stature, physically, emotionally, psychologi- enabling the wearer to “look down” cally and psycho-sexually. And this on others or have others “look up” to applies particularly to fashion foot- them. wear, as you will soon see. Fashion In the late 16th century when the has been with us since earliest civi- aristocracy of Europe, led by Cather- lization, even before, because it serves ine de Medici, queen-to-be of France, a vital role by feeding two of human embraced the new fashion of high nature’s most powerful motivating heels, some of the parvenu common- forces: status and sex attraction. ers, seeking to socially upgrade them- Clothing sociologist Rene Konig selves, also adopted the high heels. comments, “To ask where the line is The wealthy and aristocratic were in- to be drawn between the natural censed by this “invasion”. They had a and the artificial is to ask in law passed prohibiting anyone below vain...Fashion is what it is, grown the rank of gentry to wear the heels. entirely from its own roots; it em- From this came our expression “well- braces neither artifice nor nature, heeled”. but only its own all-embracing law France’s vain king Louis XIV, of sex-attraction and status.” only five feet four inches tall, himself From the earliest times tribal adopted the high heels to assume chieftains and the upper caste fami- stature equal to or above that of the The 19th century “bustle” skirt lies of any given society have dressed women. Soon, all the courtiers, along padded with pillows to create illusion and ornamented themselves to look with the aristocracy, were sporting of large buttocks—a popular 19th different from all the rest. This “tradi- high heels. Determined not to be out- century body form fashion tion” applies today no less than in statured or out-statused by the primitive times. The reason: to estab- women, they squeezed their feet into lish visible distinctions of the same fragile, precarious footwear. class, rank, wealth and author- In the 17th century a new foot- ity. Fashion is an insignia of wear fashion called “startups” ap- social caste, the indelible im- peared and was quickly adopted by primatur of status. It is the elitist society. The startup consisted ideal instrument for this be- of a shoe with a cloth or leather leg- cause it is so visible. And it ap- Continued on page 105 Versions of the chopine, an exaggerated platform shoe varying from 6 Traditional geta or platform shoe of Japan, to 30 inches in height. Popular women’s fashion of 14th and 15th centu- centuries old and still worn today. ry Europe. 104 PODIATRY MANAGEMENT • OCTOBER 2001 www.podiatrymgt.com Fashion... ral shape of the shoe, the deformed fore, is an opportunity to correct or foot and shoe themselves became a corrupt nature’s bare facts. ging, lavishly ornamented, to attract mark of status. The fundamental nature of all attention to women’s legs. Again, In Colonial America, under fashion is to reshape the body form, true to human nature, some of the British rule, the following law pre- whether actual or by illusion. The more ambitious commoners adopted vailed: “Citizens of common class, or upper castes of society need to keep a the startup style. They were quickly below the rank of gentry, are prohib- pace ahead of all the rest to maintain assailed by the elitists who gave the ited from wearing boots or shoes of an unbridgeable social chasm of class name “upstarts” to these social im- satin cloth or ribbons, or of bright distinction. So when the common postors—a term still used today with colors, or shoes with stilted heels. All Continued on page 106 the same meaning. such footwear is a mark Because status is such an innate, of rank and privilege. deep-rooted drive of human nature, Those of lesser class and because fashion is so visible, con- who attempt to emu- spicuous display becomes an essential late those of stations instrument of fashion. We assume, above by their attire for example, that pointed-toe shoes will be considered in vi- are “modern” fashion. But they date olation of His Majesty’s back 3,000 years to ancient Egypt laws and subject to fine when upper caste women wore them or jail or both.” to make the foot look smaller and more slender to distinguish it from Body Deformation the wide, splayed feet of common Darwin wrote “Man folk and slave women who toiled in admires and often tries the fields. Thus fashion, via the to exaggerate whatever pointed-toe shoes, was used as a mark characteristics nature of class and status. Because the foot may have given to Men’s platform shoe of 1970s, with 2-1/2-inch heel. was required to adapt to the unnatu- him.” Fashion, there- Normal gait is severely altered with such footwear. www.podiatrymgt.com OCTOBER 2001 • PODIATRY MANAGEMENT 105 Fashion... alone—conditions caused mostly by women even had one or two lower shoes. ribs removed surgically to enable class begins to copy and emulate the When the “new look” of fashion them to wear even smaller or tighter fashions of the elitist group above, concerts into a permanent deforma- corsets for an even narrower waist. the latter move on to a new fashion. tion of the body or one of its parts, Any woman who appeared in public That is why members of the rich and we often have a serious health prob- uncorseted was labeled a “loose elitist class have traditionally been lem. In the late 1900s the Gibson woman,” meaning uncorseted and called “fashion leaders”. They are not Girls with their extremely narrow hence of questionable morals. so much seeking to lead as to escape Despite the many warnings of being associated with the common physicians and the many articles ap- class. We humans have always be- pearing in newspapers and maga- lieved that Mother Nature somehow Keep in mind that zines, all citing the hazards and dan- fell short in designing the ideal image all fashion or dress gers of corsets to the health of for our body and its parts. We have women, corsets lost none of their spent most of our many centuries on footwear is designed not popularity. The only thing that had this planet trying to correct Nature’s for the natural, the power and influence to cause the mistakes.